lunarblue21:

Good points about the Tarrlok being woobified by the fandom angraine. Oh good lord I LOVE reading your articles they are just brilliant and spot-on.

Thank you! This wasn’t specifically about Tarrlok, though it was a conversation about him that set me off (“I just don’t get Tarrlok fans, always talking about the things they like about him!”). Honestly, it’s been a long time in coming. When I was in SW fandom, similar stuff happened with Anakin, when people pointed out that he was, in fact, brought up in slavery, and this just might have influenced his later development, particularly when it comes to his mother.

(One thing I didn’t get to is that in fantasy, particularly, there’s usually ALSO some eldritch corrupting power messing with the darker heroes’ and more sympathetic villains’ heads, too, that waters things down still more - the bit depending on the circumstances. Boromir’s personal flaws contributed to his fall to the Ring, but he’s not a terrible person because he did so. Anakin wouldn’t have chopped up children without the Dark Side. And though I don’t much like it, apparently Noatak and Tarrlok were unwillingly and unknowingly exposed to something similar in bloodbending. Meh.)